Peer Assessment: How to help students give good quality feedback

Prep feedback sheet Dweck article http://on.wsj.com/bw13cy Handout powerpoint

SLIDE: Intro Me: name, program, time teaching Use a lot of peer assessment in my classroom, so was asked have never done this workshop before, so it will be helpful to me to know Are these ideas helpful to you in your classroom

SLIDE: Teaching teachers is intimidating as hell, Some of you have way more experience than me and youll know when I mess up Some of you have way less experience than me and Im afraid Ill warp your tender, impressionable minds. Or at least that youll throw spitballs. and it was only 10 months ago, while sitting in one of those chairs, you could not pay me enough to do this.

SLIDE: What changed my mind: I love assessment. I love it in an unnatural way. more than single-malt scotch. Some of you may consider this a personality disorder, and if there are any HHS faculty in the room, Id be grateful for your professional opinion leave it in the feedback sheet. Now I work less and students learn more.

What problems was I trying to solve? I often found that students did not have good judgement about their work. Id give tons of feedback on assignments, and students didnt read it. They made the same mistakes over and over Some students spent their shop time running to me every five mnutes asking, is this good? Some students couldnt figure out when they were done, or whether their work was good, so they kept fiddling with it endlessly instead of moving on to the next task My students would hand in work without looking at the rubric Students were afraid to try things that were unfamiliar

What Im doing about it: Peer assessment Self-assessment Changed how I assess students Incorporated all of those things into how I grade

Todays Agenda: Ill show some examples of how I use peer assessment in my class Work through some examples of helping students improve the quality of their feedback Give you some time to think about how you could use peer assessment in your classroom. If youre strategic, you might be able to use what you write as part of your homework for tonight. Not peer evaluation See me after A few basic questions, to what youre interested it. help me get to know what you know not to repeat things you already know, answer questions

Handout: for you to keep, a place to take notes, or write down questions

How to use traffic lights - in palm - How confident do you feel using the traffic lights

HANDOUT: Assessment: helping students improve finding out what students know. Usually involves letting them know how theyre doing and how to improve Informal conversations Practice problems in class homework TRAFFIC LIGHT: Is this basically the same way as Taralee, Maria, and Nancy are using it? Give it some thought for a minute Hold them up

Evaluation: giving students a grade Homework Test Exam Some things fit into both categories TRAFFIC LIGHT: Is this basically the same way as Taralee, Maria, and Nancy are using it? Give it some thought for a moment Hold them up

Peer assessment Students helping other students improve If they assign grades to each other, its peer evaluation Ex: Group project participation marks I m going to focus on peer assessment, not evaluation. I do use these techniques for grades, so if youre interested in that, let me know after the workshop and Id be happy to chat with you.

 But in order for students to give good-quality evaluations, they have to make accurate assessments first. Good quality feedback.

Can students do the kind of assessing and evaluating we can do? Yes and no. We can teach students to do some of this Often happens in informal ways Students inspect each others shop work before to turn it in Students check each others homework Working it into the course allows me to teach students how to do it well and get the most benefit out of it

Take a moment to fill in page 1. Where is peer assessment happening in your program, what questions you have so far about peer assessment (15 min mark)

Intro You: - what you teach - what questions do you have about peer assessment? (30 min mark)

Why use peer assessment? - students can help each other improve - it's easier to see other people's mistakes than your own - its easier to see oher peoples strengths than your own - practicing seeing the strengths/weaknesses of someone else makes it easier to see your own - lets me focus my time where its most needed Doesnt work if students write vague, unuseful feedback

What is good quality feedback? - Identify strengths and weaknesses using clear criteria Give specific suggestions for how to improve Focus on the students work, not their talent or intelligence

Peer assessment for performance tasks - Walk them through the soldering rubric - Rate feedback #1 - Have them walk me through rating Feedback #2 - Rate the rest of the feedback - Write high-quality feedback (4 minutes) TRAFFIC LIGHT: review the rest of the feedback scores (2 minutes) Show student rubric (45 min mark)

Peer assessment for written work You classmate, Robin Moroney, has written a report about an article in the New York Times magazine, by Po Bronson. Robin has asked you to give her some feedback. As we saw before, students will need very clear guidelines about what to write feedback about. These are the criteria I use in my classes, because they make sense for electronics. Answers a question Source is Recent, relevant, reviewed by experts I can understand what you mean (I can summarize it) Relationship between cause and effect Relates to what weve learned in class

I made this worksheet to match my criteria; Ill get you to try it out to get a feel for it. My students write summaries of information they find; they get feedback from classmates, and then go back to write a second draft. Take 5 minutes and fill out as much of the rubric as you can. If you finish that, give some thought to your own classroom. Is there a place in your teaching where peer assessment would make sense? Theres some space on p. 3 for your thoughts. What was it like filling in the rubric? (1 hr mark)

Conclusion: - there are some kinds of feedback that students can't give each other. That's why I'm there. - But there are some kinds they can. To help students give each other good-quality feedback: clear criteria a chance to see good-quality and poor-quality feedback A chance to practice writing feedback Using peer assessment can Help students develop their judgement Help students improve their work Free up teacher time to give the kind of feedback students cant Links If youre interested in assessment, more info Stay in touch Eval: